Because we don’t all “do” IT

An interesting experience happened to me the other day. I was sitting in a talk organised by a local organisation, using my laptop to live tweet what the speaker was talking about. Some of my followers on Twitter could be interested in the subject matter, and I’m very much into sharing what I learn. Anyway, at the end of the talk, the person sitting to my immediate right too my aside and proceeded to complain in no uncertain terms about how annoying my “tapping on that infernal machine” was and how it ruined the whole thing for him. My initial reaction was to retort in a similar manner, but instead I chose to listen to this gentlemen, as I did find the whole experience quite fascinating really.

You see, for us immersed in technology, it’s quite easy to assume that everyone sees the world in the same way we do. In fact, most times I have been pulled aside to talk about my “tapping on that infernal machine”, it had always been by people curious as to what I was doing and looking to learn something new. This was different, the person in question was really distressed . I suppose etiquette would dictate that I should ask my neighbours if I was going to do something out of the usual, but it hadn’t even crossed my mind that someone would get so upset sitting close to a laptop. I can’t see him looking for life insurance quotes online or booking his next airline ticket in this way.

I feel sad for the person in question, but it was also quite enlightening to be reminded that there are people out there who have no interest, in fact, quite an aversion to technology; yet they are our consumers, our customers and even our clients.